Crowning Glory
by Alchemine
Summary: Remus Lupin finds out why Minerva McGonagall always wears her trademark bun.


**Disclaimer**: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Author's Note:** This takes place sometime during PoA, while Lupin is still teaching at Hogwarts. I've always wondered myself why Minerva insists on wearing the Bun of Doom, and hoped the explanation wasn't "because she's an uptight prude." I think this is an interesting alternative. It's also a bit of a parody of the many fics where Minerva lets down her hair and suddenly looks like a supermodel. (Not that I don't enjoy those fics, because I do!)

~~~

Remus Lupin had been reading student essays for so long that his eyes were beginning to burn. He let the piece of parchment he was holding fall onto the pile in front of him and rubbed both hands over his face, groaning.

"Tired?" asked Minerva McGonagall, who was sitting on the other side of the staffroom table, tackling her own heap of essays. She seemed to be getting through three to every one of Remus'. He supposed experience made you work faster - maybe because you'd seen everything before.

"Exhausted," he said. "The third years have good ideas, but their handwriting is terrible. I hope mine wasn't that bad when I was at school."

"As I recall, you usually started out quite neatly, then collapsed into a degenerate scrawl for the last six inches," Minerva said. Since she was still bent over her work, he could only see the top of her head, but he suspected she was smirking.

His eyes still felt full of sand, and the idea of forcing them to focus on written words again was agonizing. Hoping to postpone the inevitable, he watched Minerva for a moment longer. She had forsaken her usual emerald-green robes that day for a set in Gryffindor crimson. They had gold embroidery around the neck and wrists, and looked very rich with her dark hair. What had she done to keep that hair so perfectly black while he'd been away from Hogwarts? Heaven knew his own had greyed enough. 

It wasn't fair. Minerva had to be close to seventy, and though that was only middle-aged for a witch, surely she was due a few silver strands by now. But there she was, looking almost exactly the same as when she'd taught him, right down to the bun.

A grin spread across his face as he thought of all the jokes he, Sirius, James and Peter had made about that bun over the years. Rain or shine, morning, noon or evening, it was firmly in place, wound up as intricately as the Gordian knot. He'd wondered often enough why she insisted on wearing it that way. Well, there was no reason not to ask her about it, was there? They had developed a comfortable friendship during the course of this year, and anyway, he wasn't her student _now_.

"You know, I've always wondered why you never leave your hair down," he said. "It looks like it would be lovely."

Minerva sighed, straightened up, and set her quill neatly to one side. "It is, if I do say so myself," she said. "But letting it down in public has certain ... consequences that I prefer not to deal with."

"Consequences? What sort of consequences could there possibly be?"

A strange glint came into Minerva's eye.

"Would you like me to show you?" she asked.

Yes," said Remus, pleased that she was responding so readily to his inquiry.

"All right," Minerva said, "but remember, you asked for it." She got up and, to his surprise, closed and locked the staffroom door. Then she crossed the room to stand in front of him, silhouetted by the light from the window. 

"Here goes, then," she said, and reaching up, plucked a strategically placed pin out of her bun. Her hair came down in a rush - long, then longer, reaching almost to her waist. She shook out the black locks so they hung straight and glossy. As she did, a warm, faintly floral perfume drifted out and caressed Remus' nostrils. And to his horror, he found himself painfully, embarrassingly aroused. He cleared his throat and discreetly tried to adjust his robes, hoping the sensation would go away. It didn't. If anything, it grew stronger, until his entire awareness was centered around his groin. He felt hot and achy and not a little desperate.

"Please ..." he croaked, though he wasn't even sure what he was begging for. He pushed back his chair, rose, and took a stumbling step toward her - and then Minerva gathered her hair up in both hands and twisted it into its knot again, and his mind cleared. 

She smiled at him a bit apologetically.

"I did warn you, you know," she said. 

"What the _hell_ was that about?" Remus demanded. Wiping sweat from his forehead with his sleeve - if there was one benefit to wearing threadbare robes, it was never having to worry about ruining them - he collapsed, trembling, back into his seat. "What are you, a veela in disguise?" 

"No, just someone who once worked a charm that went wrong," Minerva said. "Would you believe I was only trying to stop myself getting split ends?" 

"And that was the result?" 

"It was," she said, smoothing a few loose tendrils of hair into place. "I won't say it's never come in handy - mostly when I've met someone I fancied in a pub - but could you imagine trying to have a normal life with every man you pass clutching his crotch and drooling at you? Not to mention the havoc it could wreak on my career. Such a lack of professional dignity. No, it's much safer to avoid the issue altogether. Keep the hair up, keep the spell under control."

Remus had a sudden vision of Minerva using this unexpected power to lure handsome wizards into the alley behind the Three Broomsticks. He shook his head to get rid of it.

"Back when I was a student, we always used to say that if you ever let your hair down, the walls of Hogwarts would come down with it," he said. "I can tell you we never imagined anything like this, though."

"And that's just the way I would have wanted it," Minerva replied primly. She sat down at the table again, picking up her quill and preparing to go back to work. Clearly, she thought the subject was closed. But Remus was as inflamed with professional curiosity now as he had been with misplaced passion a few minutes before.

"Wait, you can't just leave it there. Tell me more. Does it only work on men? Does it have to be in a knot like that, or would just tying it back have the same effect? Haven't you ever tried to find a countercharm?"

Minerva looked up from the new essay she was marking.

"Yes, yes, no, and yes," she said. "Now let's not talk about it any longer. I don't tell many people my little secret. Don't make me sorry I told you." He opened his mouth as if to ask another question, and she added "Because if you do, I'll come to your room tonight. I'll immobilize you so you can't touch me, or yourself. And then I'll let my hair down and sit on the edge of your bed till morning."

"That would be torture," said Remus, imagining it.

"Yes," Minerva said with a faint smile.

He thought for a minute while she regarded him over the tops of her spectacles.

"Please pass the ink," he said.

"Good boy, Remus."

After that, the only sound in the staffroom was the thin scratch-scratch of quills on parchment.

~end~


End file.
